On this week's episode of the podcast, we're joined by Alex Blumberg, a reporter at the Globe and Mail who covers the dark web and privacy issues surrounding it. We talk about how Google is tracking our every move online, and what we should and shouldn't be doing with our personal data.
00:00:00.320So, guys, I don't know if you saw that report about how easy it is, I guess, to get drugs in Canada online.
00:00:05.960You don't have to go to the dark web or anything.
00:00:08.300Alex, curious about you because you're always reporting on some pretty dark stuff about crime that you're covering.
00:00:14.860So I'm wondering what kind of advertisements you might have seen online recently.
00:00:19.280That's the weirdest thing. I haven't been getting any cocaine advertisements at all.
00:00:22.700And I plug that word and many other drug words into my Google keyboard search all the time.
00:00:29.020And so, yeah, I don't know how the algorithm works.
00:00:32.940We were just talking about how it just sometimes recommends the craziest things.
00:00:38.960And I was going to tell a story about it.
00:00:40.640Before, I used to work at a bank and we were doing the Biggest Loser Challenge.
00:00:43.840So it was this thing to figure out who could lose the most amount of weight.
00:00:46.800I swear my phone must have been listening to me because I kept talking about it with my friends and my colleagues.
00:00:51.980It was like, I got to lose weight quickly to win this challenge.
00:00:54.700And then it started recommending laxatives.
00:00:56.520Well, Lid, I got an interesting question for you, too, because obviously you just went down to Brazil from Ottawa.
00:01:03.640I'm wondering if you saw any notable changes in the kind of ads you were seeing when you were in a different country there?
00:01:10.080Funnily enough, what happens to me is when I'm scrolling on social media, I get content on Instagram, for example, on X in different languages because I follow people around the world that post and publish in different languages.
00:01:22.160So sometimes without even traveling, I can get posts from different parts of the world depending on the language and its native root.
00:01:29.280So if you're getting language from, I don't know, something in Spanish, you might be getting advertisements from South Central American companies or companies with branches in those parts of the world.
00:01:39.700I have been getting different ads, of course, travel related ads, a lot of them, because, of course, I mean, I guess whenever you're moving around a lot, I think they're always looking for, to assume at least, that you're someone with a great appetite for travel.
00:01:52.020I frankly think when it comes to the algorithm source, there's many more source of data points today than there used to be in the beginning of the .com versus in the start of the century, which essentially, you know, we used to always look at search history, number one, keystrokes, things that can be recorded very simply as you're typing into your Google search, your Bing, if you're unfortunate enough to be using that crap, or your Yahoo or anything else that would be an alternative.
00:02:17.400Of course, now we have, you know, you have DuckDuckGo for your privacy hack, you have some alternatives to Google these days, but for now, Google search has always been the dominant since the beginning.
00:02:26.620And if you're typing in keystrokes into Google, everything is, you know, well-recorded, well-stored, you know, even on Econito as well.
00:02:33.660I mean, their servers, their databases is very much advanced and on the point for most of the part.
00:02:38.880But now, when you have, you know, an Apple Watch or another smartwatch, you have smart home devices, you have a mobile device that goes with you everywhere you are, geolocation, audible points of data, your camera roll, your exchange of contacts between your device, other devices, your proximity to other people's devices, depending on if you have a shared contact.
00:03:02.320I don't know if you guys ever use the airdrop feature on iPhones to send pictures between two people, but sometimes that requires proximity.
00:03:09.400Again, whatever data point you have, whether it's where you are, who are you around, how you are interacting, I think there's just so much more sources.
00:03:18.060So, frankly, there are times where I find, like, there's a lot of things that are just super relevant to me, and then sometimes things are not relevant at all.
00:03:24.840But I think that's only because the data points are much more, have a much wider variable.
00:03:30.140It's not just what I'm searching on my one device at home.
00:03:32.640It's what I'm searching, what I'm doing, what I'm traveling on basically every device I own.
00:03:37.460And now I think it's much more normal for all of us to have a phone, laptop, some sort of gaming, tablet, or entertainment device, television with smart features or a smart device plugged in.
00:03:46.880There's just too much data points to give up that we, you know, we essentially have zero essence of privacy.
00:03:52.020But I definitely do think the ads, for the most part, have been a bit more relevant than what my colleague Alex has been seeing recently.
00:03:58.760Well, thankfully for our audience, Waleed, the first story we'll talk about today is relevant to everyone, I'd argue.
00:04:04.560Of course, my name is Isaac Lamour, and I'm joined by my True North colleagues today, Waleed Tamtam and Alex Zoltan.
00:04:16.880So, guys, we've seen, obviously, numerous floor crossings in the past weeks or months.
00:04:23.740And Pierre Pelliev actually had an exclusive interview with Juno News on Wednesday.
00:04:28.180So I'd urge everyone to go watch that.
00:04:30.320That was with Mark Patron, where he blasted off on Carney for essentially trying to secure what would be an elected majority.
00:04:38.740Because, as we all know, Carney was elected with a minority.
00:04:41.620But now with several MPs crossing the floor to the Liberals, he's very close to securing that majority.
00:04:49.620And obviously that would have nationwide consequences because assuming all the MPs voted in the Liberals' favour, they could pass anything they wanted without any opposition.
00:05:00.300Even right now, I will say that while they don't technically have a majority, if they need one or two votes from MPs, they could realistically pass everything.
00:05:08.640Because they can secure a vote from a block MP or NDP or a Green Party even could push them over the edge, right?
00:05:16.000So it's not like this is going to make that big of a difference.
00:05:19.940But still on paper, of course, having a majority government and even a major minority are two different things.
00:05:26.980So, yeah, what have you guys thought about those floor crossings?
00:05:30.340Specifically, I guess, you know, it's hard to even talk about electoral reform, if you want to call this this.
00:05:37.780Because, I mean, the Liberals have been promising that they first came into power in 2015 with Trudeau.
00:05:41.960They've been promising they'll make changes to the electoral systems and prove them.
00:05:45.240But, of course, that never comes to fruition because it can only hurt them when it actually comes down to election time.
00:05:50.740Well, I think, Isaac, there's a very interesting point that came up to me just recently.
00:05:58.360Because, of course, remember how the story was that Christophe Montt was upset with the fact that he wasn't given the deputy speaker role by the party.
00:06:08.100Of course, obviously, most people would consider that a promotion given the increased salary and responsibility.
00:06:13.780But when it comes to Michael Ma, I think the news has come out quite cleanly and quite fast, actually, is now next week, Mark Cardi is heading to China.
00:06:23.060For the first time, the Canadian Prime Minister will meet with Xi Jinping in China since almost a decade now.
00:06:31.000Hopefully, of course, this is about resetting relations to China, opening up some trade avenues, and, of course, dealing with the canola tariff situation, which is of great interest to the Western provinces.
00:06:41.000But, of course, Michael Ma will be joining on that trip.
00:06:44.180Now, this is an interesting angle to the whole story of Michael Ma, from the fact that he was a former executive for a, essentially, Chinese company.
00:06:52.860Then he became an MP for the Conservatives, running and riding on their behalf against a number of candidates who were compromised by CCP links that, essentially, helped the Conservatives flip the seat to blue.
00:07:09.500And then you had the Jotay situation as well, which is exactly what the situation would be.
00:07:16.360Mark in Muninville, a liberal candidate, was all about.
00:07:20.120The fact that one of their candidates said that a bounties to be collected on Jotay's head.
00:07:24.500Jotay is a well-known Hong Kong actor and dissident of the CCP.
00:07:28.680He's against the CCP and is extending control of, authoritarian control of Hong Kong.
00:07:33.420So, now this guy is getting his own promotion by being part of this delegation to China.
00:07:40.280And, of course, this perception around him individually as someone who may be compromised by CCP interference makes all that more concerning that he's going to be hands-on in this relationship.
00:07:52.200It's akin to the situation, if you guys remember Chandra Arya, who was once, I think, a three-time MP holding on Carney's seat.
00:08:00.480I think a lot of people would be surprised that this guy was a three-time MP, given his lack of communication skills in either English and definitely not French.
00:08:08.700But, yeah, this guy who was, you know, a well-known, you know, pro-Modi figure.
00:08:13.600Again, one would consider him useful in setting, you know, India-Canada ties from one perspective.
00:08:20.220But, again, from the ethical perspective, it's, you know, a question of dual loyalty or possibly a question of, you know, ethics as well.
00:08:30.560If he is too embedded with the government of India for whatever capacity.
00:08:35.720Same thing with Christopher Lund in Ukraine.
00:08:37.200So I'm looking at Michael Ma in the same way in the sense of, you know, is this someone that is looking at Canadian tourists purely?
00:08:43.940Is this someone that has his pockets in China?
00:08:47.580Because, of course, his past and his political projections so far seem to spell at least credible rumors around it,
00:08:55.420which is why you will see a lot of coverage from the likes of Sam Cooper and other anti-CCP activists covering Michael Ma.
00:09:01.360I mean, these are the people that are most frustrated about Michael Ma, not from a partisan sense about crossing the floor,
00:09:05.740but more importantly, his own personal links to the CCP and the Chinese influence project in Canada.
00:09:12.380So I guess the floor cross situation for me, as bad as it is from a democratic angle,
00:09:18.400I'm looking at it from a foreign interference angle because this effectively changed the results against democratic will,
00:09:24.340perhaps on the will of a political agenda that we may not know of because of how discreet or foreign it may be.
00:09:32.040Yeah, and Alex, Waleed touched briefly on Freeland there, but I'll ask you about her because, well, a few things.
00:09:38.540First of all, of course, we know she took that position in Ukraine and eventually, after all the blowback, she got resigned her seat.
00:09:46.680I was just looking at the polling there in her writing, University of Rosedale,
00:09:50.300and it's, I would argue, a guaranteed liberal win based on the current polling and NDP in second, not even the conservatives.
00:09:56.300So that's not going to really change the dynamics in the House of Commons.
00:10:01.420But another thing Poliev said in this interview with Juno was he was just so surprised that Freeland faced such backlash
00:10:10.280when he said, Poliev did, that Carney's lists of conflicts of interests are much, much, much, much longer,
00:10:17.880and he seems to have diplomatic immunity when it comes to that thing, those things.
00:10:22.340So, yeah, what do you think about that, Alex, just the fact that we saw in the last few days Freeland get attacked so hard for her decision,
00:10:29.840but Carney kind of seems to just, I guess, get away with it in that sense.
00:10:36.500Yeah, I don't know if he does necessarily get away with it.
00:10:39.060I mean, they call him conflict of interest Carney.
00:10:42.080Like, people know that there's a lot of conflicts of interest there.
00:10:46.120What I find interesting about the floor crossings and the Michael Ma thing,
00:10:48.980I mean, if Michael Ma is indeed, you know, Beijing's man working in Ottawa on behalf of the Chinese government,
00:10:57.000then that would mean that the conservatives ran a foreign agent.
00:11:00.360I mean, like, if we're looking at this objectively, right, I mean, you'd have an issue no matter who was elected as prime minister.
00:11:07.240I think the really interesting thing, though, broadly speaking about the floor crossings,
00:11:10.700is that, you know, when Trudeau was prime minister and they had that supply and confidence agreement with the NDP,
00:11:16.480they effectively had a majority, and it painted them as kind of dictators to some extent,
00:11:23.160especially when they invoked the Emergencies Act, which was later deemed illegal.
00:11:27.000And so I actually think that, like, a minority government under Carney was kind of convenient for them, right,
00:11:31.740because it gave at least the air or the impression of them being accountable and not having all the cards.
00:11:39.220So if they would become a majority, as the old saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility, right?
00:11:43.820Like, people are going to be a lot more critical of this government.
00:11:46.520It might be easier and faster to pass some of their legislation, but they're going to have that.
00:11:52.040I think that they're going to have that same negative perception that the Trudeau government had going forward.
00:11:59.260Yeah, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
00:12:02.820Also, Canadians did not vote for a majority government, right?
00:12:05.800Yeah, that's the biggest problem for me, especially because, as I've said time and time before,
00:12:12.240and again on this show before, when we've spoken about this, you aren't really voting for the MP,
00:18:10.220Because we obviously saw maybe a few months ago Ford pouring out that alcohol on the live stream there.
00:18:17.200That got a lot of maybe even global airwaves.
00:18:19.740But what do you think about the kind of the approach from Ford in regard to getting involved with this private industry, let's say?
00:18:25.940I think it's silly, and I think it gives much more credibility to the argument of removing provincial-run liquor boards overall, frankly.
00:18:34.520This is one more dent to the attempts by both Mark Carney in principle and other candidates in principle at the federal level that want to break down interprovincial trade barriers.
00:18:46.600Again, a very noteworthy goal that I think would have great economic benefits should it be possible between the premiers to get to the table and get something done for once.
00:18:58.460This particular example, you have workers working in manufacturing sites in Manitoba that are producing this product, essentially.
00:19:06.860And the concern is you have one of their plants in Ontario that has moved off into the U.S. under terror pressures and other situations going on.
00:19:14.120Of course, Ontario is not exactly the best place to be doing business at the moment, given a number of factors of wealth, some of which are under Doug Ford's own nose.
00:19:22.480It remains an attack against the message we were hearing from Mark Carney all election long.
00:19:29.520And, of course, Doug Ford being a champion of Mark Carney's Canada, you know, all-Canada, Team Canada approach.
00:19:36.140That's the word I'm looking for, Team Canada.
00:19:37.940They have a lot of slogans, by the way.
00:19:39.220Team Canada strong, Team Canada, you know, everything, I mean, elbows up, the whole, you know, word salad of nonsense.
00:19:46.160I just think this completely contradicts Doug Ford's previous goal.
00:19:49.480This company does business in Manitoba, that is Canadian business.
00:19:52.520It's not an Ontario business, for sure.
00:19:54.300So, is Doug Ford now speaking or thinking under an Ontario first, an Ontario alone mindset?
00:20:01.120Possibly, because that's probably where his votes will be going in the future.
00:20:04.520I don't see much of a federal career for him in the short term.
00:20:08.240So, I think he's just protecting his own political interests in Ontario.
00:20:11.520Unfortunately, it seems like he remains heavily popular in that sense, at least among enough Ontarians and enough districts to give him, you know, the supermajority he needs for the rest of his career.
00:20:21.340Yeah, interestingly, Willie, just when you were speaking there, you were kind of mirroring some of the talking points by the UFCW Canada national president, Barry Sawyer, who said, elbows up doesn't just mean elbows up for Ontario.
00:20:35.260It means all Canadian workers need to stand together in solidarity.
00:20:38.140So, yeah, if you see these premiers talking about breaking down interprovincial barriers and working together as provinces to be a stronger country, it's like, and then you're going against these companies that are producing in Canada, just because it's not in Ontario.
00:20:53.920But, and then even for UFCW Canada, who is criticizing Ford there, they represent 250,000 workers nationwide.
00:21:42.720But maybe moving over to your neck of the woods there, Alex, both physically, where you are, and also what you report on.
00:21:50.280Well, we've seen a lot of controversy from a different premier this week, that being BC Premier David Eby and his drug decriminalization experiment, which is set to end at the end of this month.
00:22:03.660So, we've seen people asking him at press conferences about that and maybe some pivots from Eby because he's, I don't know that he's even celebrating it at this point.
00:22:16.140But obviously, this was a longly supported by members of his government, if not him himself, Alex.
00:22:23.140So, what was happening with the decrim project this week there?
00:22:26.300Yeah, so it was started as a three-year pilot project between the BC government and the federal government of Canada, specifically through the Health Canada Department.
00:22:39.940It's not exactly clear what we're going to be doing going forward, which is kind of concerning.
00:22:46.200I mean, they only had three years to figure it out.
00:22:48.640But, you know what, I think one of the frustrating things about David Eby's messaging on this is that he sometimes conflates the public drug use and the drug decriminalization policy.
00:22:59.160So, just to give you some background, or when this policy was first introduced, one of the reasons that they didn't prohibit public drug use, it wasn't just simply that they forgot, it was because they wanted to reduce stigma.
00:23:10.980And there actually was some method to the madness here.
00:23:16.180But the idea is that if you're using drugs, particularly dangerous drugs like cocaine or fentanyl, the biggest risk to you overdosing and dying, sadly, is if you're using alone.
00:23:26.200Because there's nobody around to naloxone you or whatever.
00:23:29.160Obviously, the best way to not overdose on any of these drugs is to just not do them.
00:23:34.960But basically, the government thought, well, you know, if people are doing fentanyl out in the street and they overdose and somebody can naloxone and bring them back to life quicker, kind of makes sense, I guess.
00:24:12.140And, you know, it's also very strange, too, because we have basically had de facto drug decriminalization in Vancouver for a very long time.
00:24:20.720Very few people are going to be charged for having a gram of cocaine on them in Vancouver.
00:24:25.820I mean, if we did arrest everybody in the downtown east side for drug possession, the courtrooms would be full.
00:24:31.020We wouldn't be able to prosecute any violent criminals.
00:24:33.740I was going to say, if you went down these tastings, there has to be tons, literal tons, T-O-N-E-S, of drugs if you counted up all the people.
00:24:41.660And I mean, and this also only covered you for two and a half grams.
00:24:44.360Now, two and a half grams sounds like a tiny amount of drugs, but when it comes to fentanyl, that could potentially be hundreds or thousands of lethal doses, which is a whole other kettle of fish.
00:24:53.860I can't believe that they lumped fentanyl in with cocaine.
00:25:18.520Walid, I was going to say, I think a silver lining from what we've seen in B.C. when it comes to drugs, and maybe I'm biased because of Alberta, but I think other premiers have seen what's going on there, or especially over the last few years, and just have looked at the data and that this hasn't actually helped people in any notable way.
00:25:37.840It's making these drug addicts worse off.
00:25:40.220So, of course, in Alberta, for example, we've gone with the opposite kind of approach.
00:25:45.280Let's say the recovery first model, it's not – you're not trying to give people drugs.
00:25:49.100You're actually trying to help them get off drugs.
00:25:51.280So, Walid, do you think other provinces have taken note of kind of what happened in B.C., and do you think it may actually have a positive effect on the rest of the country because of how poorly their kind of drug situation is?
00:26:01.960Well, given how unpopular it is in British Columbia, and British Columbia is still being a relatively progressive province across the country, if you're comparing it off to Alberta and Saskatchewan and even Manitoba, I think it has a nationally – a message that can transcend itself nationally.
00:26:17.660Unfortunately for British Columbians and those that have seen loved ones fall victim to drug addiction, but this project in B.C. looks to me like a human lab experiment, essentially, you know, an experiment of rather progressive stupidity, I would argue, in the sense of trying to help people who are addicted to drugs continue their use in a much safer controlled environment.
00:26:44.820But I don't see much of the control guardrails.
00:26:47.400I see more of the public keeping it out there.
00:26:51.320I think with a lot of problems that we have in our society, transparency is a benefit.
00:26:56.460Knowing the problem is there definitely does generate an appetite.
00:27:00.020So if I'm going to be a little bit morally perverted here, I would say I give credit to the NDP in B.C.
00:27:05.580by overly opening up a marketplace to accessing drugs, especially drugs, you know, of strong, deadly, dangerous nature in places of public view, such as parks, even closer to schools,
00:27:21.580has generated enough concern and frustration for the rest of society in B.C. and across Canada to take a much critical look at the issue of drugs in our society domestically, first and foremost.
00:27:31.820And I think that appetite, from a political standpoint, could render possible future reforms that would mimic more of Alberta's less, you know, reckless model of get off drugs.
00:27:43.460If you're going to make the decision to get clean, there could be some supports to help people get clean.
00:27:49.760We cannot support people deciding to continue down the path of degeneracy, of death, destruction, just zombifying themselves.
00:27:58.460I'm sorry, but there are there are those that are simply lost that do not want this kind of help.
00:28:03.260And, you know, I think it's a weakness of overly simplifying, sorry, overly sympathizable people.
00:28:11.060That's kind of the issue we have from the cultural standpoint, I would say.
00:28:15.040Well, on the stigma issue, too, obviously you run into the clear contradiction where we stigmatize smoking.
00:28:20.400You know, like, I mean, we have these grotesque warning labels on cigarette packs, but we're not going to stigmatize people, you know, doing the fentanyl fold and, you know, the street.
00:28:31.840It doesn't seem like you can have it both ways here.
00:28:34.600No, and you can't smoke in the restaurant.
00:28:36.620You can't smoke a few meters in front of a shopping mall, stores.
00:28:40.220I mean, you know, I'm not a public health expert or anything, but I would imagine that that stigmatization of smoking has probably been pretty effective.
00:28:48.200I mean, the smoking rate in Canada used to be in the double digits.
00:28:51.000Now it's like six percent or something.
00:28:52.800So it seems like you can't I don't understand how you can take one approach with fentanyl and then another approach with nicotine.
00:29:01.960And of course, then, of course, the heavy regulation on nicotine or sorry, tobacco, alternative products that have like nicotine pouches and other things of that nature.
00:29:11.480It seems very interesting because, you know, you have a lot less health consequences there in comparison to hard drugs in terms of deaths and illness.
00:29:18.620Of course, I still don't endorse any sort of use of any tobacco products whatsoever.
00:29:22.800I think people are going to do their best to stay healthy and live a long, healthy life.
00:29:26.600But ultimately, given the market of options we have with tobacco, it's like, you know, and of course, the heavy restriction regulation, public information campaigns against products as well, the clear bias of health agencies against these products as well.
00:29:39.640It's just it's amazing to me how we've taken a radically different approach.
00:29:45.040But again, sometimes it takes a great period of suffering to generate the appetite to head in a different direction.
00:29:52.100And I think now this is no longer a passive issue.
00:29:54.420So, yeah, maybe this pilot project taught us that the answer to getting off drugs isn't more drugs.
00:30:00.140But, Alex, I wanted to ask you because, of course, it ends on the 31st.
00:30:26.620Because ultimately, it's still up to a police officer's discretion whether or not they want to arrest somebody for possession of, you know, two and a half grams of drugs.
00:30:35.400And I imagine in most instances, they probably won't.
00:30:39.200I mean, again, it's just I think that in Vancouver, especially, that we have long kind of just had a permissive attitude towards this type of activity.
00:30:47.140So I don't think that's going to change too dramatically.
00:30:50.120To be fair, when I was in high school, I felt the same way here in Alberta and Edmonton that more or less weed was decriminalized.
00:30:57.920Like, if a cop found marijuana on you, they're not going to – they might take it from you.
00:31:03.180But aside from that, like, you're not getting charges pressed against you.
00:31:13.820And if you have 10 pounds of cocaine, I mean, they would charge you whether it was decriminalized or not because it only covered you for the two and a half grams.
00:31:21.360So I don't think that there's going to be much change at all.
00:31:25.280Speaking of not much change with the firearms here, we are still going down this road of what appears to be very ineffective fiscal responsibility, let's say,
00:31:39.900because the liberals recently promised to give Quebec $12.4 million, despite, of course, the pilot project in Nova Scotia only confiscating 25 firearms.
00:31:55.280And the initial calculation was that that costed – that project costed in Cape Breton there $7,000 per firearm.
00:32:02.600But that was when the numbers were that they had collected 28 firearms.
00:33:05.800And we've seen the numerous lies there, of course, that, for example, that it's always been voluntary.
00:33:11.400But, of course, if you are caught with an illegal firearm based on the criminal code, you could face five years in prison.
00:33:16.720So I don't know what's voluntary about that.
00:33:19.100Yeah, I mean, we see this all the time with the liberals.
00:33:21.360Like, the laws that are already on the books are already sufficient.
00:33:25.280Like, why do we have to make these new laws and spend a whole bunch of money exploring these new programs that we already have laws designated and designed to deal with these problems?
00:33:36.040I've seen another, I want to say, interesting point against this whole program we'll lead, which I'll ask you about, because we're seeing the liberals trying to disarm Canadians, albeit unsuccessfully with this program because of how ineffective it is.
00:33:49.480But, in theory, they're trying to disarm Canadians, spend billions on doing that, while they're arming other nations, sending billions overseas, for example, to Ukraine to literally give them firearms.
00:33:58.580We even offered firearms to them, like, oh, you could use our guns, but here we are disarming our own citizens.
00:34:03.060So what do you think about that kind of paradox, I guess, if you would, Waleed?
00:34:07.780Well, when I link the whole Ukraine issue, I wouldn't link it to the issue of gun buyback or the unconfiscation, to be more accurate with the term.
00:34:15.820I would link Ukraine more to the fact that we have an underarm, underserved military from that perspective.
00:34:21.160Actually, the military, military families, military veterans probably make up a pretty large, sizable demographic of legal and trained, responsible gun owners in the country.
00:34:31.180Now, I don't endorse, again, freely distributed weapons around the country.
00:34:35.440I think we're a bit of a different culture.
00:34:37.140Definitely control and some public safety regulations, which we already do have, are great, and I'm thankful for them.
00:34:43.620And I just don't think we have that necessity, as there perhaps is elsewhere, to take guns out of the hands of those that are best trained, capable, and responsible with those firearms.
00:34:57.280And so I think, maybe linking it to the drug issue, but just from a political analysis standpoint, is when at the very least you have a sense of crisis, or at least the advertisement that there may be a crisis around an issue, you'll have an appetite.
00:35:13.260Right. And frankly, I don't think there was a gun violence epidemic in Canada, but definitely there are, you know, a rise in crime involving violent crime, which should involve oftentimes on robbery or the use of firearms within the span of the criminal activity.
00:35:28.640Of course, a lot of that is coming from illegal weapons, mostly illegal weapons coming from, obviously, the number one supplier of arms in the world, the United States, which we have a large undefended border with.
00:35:38.360And that perhaps should be the better focus on security in terms of combating gun violence in the country.
00:35:43.220It's kind of where the guns that we don't know are coming from that are not registered to anyone, that are not, you know, given to licensed gun owners and are being operated, you know, in a fashion that is inappropriate and dangerous to public safety.
00:35:57.820I think the public safety minister has to look at the border before he looks at anywhere else, Quebec, Alberta, Nova Scotia.
00:36:04.520Of course, we remember the tragedy that happened during COVID in Nova Scotia, which drove up a lot more talk on gun control.
00:36:11.220And of course, there was the program was essentially pioneered and inspired from that time period.
00:36:16.480And ever since then, there's been more push.
00:36:18.920Of course, Natalie Provost herself is a, you know, a very strong advocate on that portfolio.
00:36:25.120I think it's probably her main cause in her political life so far with Mark Carney's government as well right now.
00:36:31.960So I think there is a political appetite in the Liberal Caucus, which has more seats in the House that can continue going down any path they feel appropriate.
00:36:43.200It is easier to take guns, although the Liberal government has been unsuccessful even in that sense, from legal gun owners than it is from illegal gun owners, given the fact that the legal gun owners will comply at some stage with laws, provided that provincial governments are on board with the federal gun buyback program, which depends from province to province.
00:37:00.960But ultimately, I just don't see any true political need for this.
00:37:06.700I don't think people really want this.
00:37:09.880And I think, like, to Isaac's point, I think it was Bill Blair who was, I believe, spearheaded this entire thing.
00:37:15.920In response to the Nova Scotia tragedy, he was the one that floated the idea of taking these guns and transporting them to Ukraine, which is just ridiculous.
00:37:24.460And also, I might add just another ridiculous thing.
00:37:28.320If you were, I mean, God forbid, planning on going on a mass shooting spree, why would you voluntarily give up your guns to the government prior to doing it?
00:37:36.940I mean, like, on its face, this entire idea is just completely absurd.
00:37:40.700And then we also have this extortion issue.
00:37:43.380So, clearly, gun violence is getting worse.
00:37:45.100And what underpins a lot of this is this bizarre notion in Ottawa, as well as in academia, that increasing prison sentences is not a deterrent to crime.
00:37:55.220This is why they're coming after the legal gun.
00:37:57.240Rather than just saying, let's increase the mandatory minimum for owning an illegal gun and shooting somebody.
00:38:02.520It's that they believe prisons are, what do they call it, criminogenic, and they believe that it just produces more criminals than it actually reduces.
00:38:12.200But, of course, anybody with any sense of common sense knows that that's not the case.
00:38:16.820The best way to get criminals off the streets is to put them in prisons and not just release them and hope that they magically get better one day.
00:39:08.160And that's really, I guess, the Liberals' or any left-wing advocates, I'd argue, their main playbook, you know, it's misrepresenting the facts.
00:39:53.500I'd like to thank my colleagues, Bleed, Tam Tam, and Alex Zoltan.
00:39:55.720I remember everything you heard today was off the record.
00:39:57.880You know, what I find insane is the gun by the confiscation program, it's a program where ultimately you're going to have RCMP officers engaging with people that are living in the most rural part of Saskatchewan, Alberta,
00:40:17.520with their hunting rifle, their sport shooting rifle, their bolt-action rifle, whatever's legally owned, whatever's left in that catalog that's being cracked down on at this point,
00:40:27.420because we already have banned many guns over the years.
00:40:30.900I think you just have to think about the heat map.
00:40:34.840The heat map, essentially, the map where you'll have a color coordination depending on whether you have high rates of crime committed with guns and where you have lower rates.
00:40:42.860Looking at what those heat points, the red points, are probably going to be Toronto, the GTA area, Brampton, maybe Montreal.
00:41:04.760Yeah, look at those urban areas, suburbs, cities, the demographics, of course, as well.
00:41:10.700I mean, you know, young people, probably people that are, you know, involved in, you know, criminal networks or gangs.
00:41:18.380The Bishnoi group is probably one of those groups that are highlighted, for example, in Syria and Brampton.
00:41:23.940You see all these cases of extortions targeting certain Southeast Asian communities.
00:41:29.460It just boggles my mind that it seems like such a distraction.
00:41:34.200You know, like, if you're spending any effort, money, and energy looking at rural Western Canada, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, people that are far away from urban areas, frankly, far away from the chaos of the cities, and then you're looking at the cities and what's going on over there, there's just a very different situation.
00:41:54.200So, to be fair, Waleed, both of those provinces have been at the forefront of saying, we're not doing this.
00:41:59.760This myth has gone as far as saying, I'm telling people not to do it.
00:42:02.380Like, we will absolutely in no way, shape, or form be doing this.
00:42:04.780Of course, I guess the RCMP could, in theory, come in and do that, but I don't see that actually taking place.
00:42:09.940Because, of course, like we're talking about here, Cape Breton, Quebec, these are Eastern provinces.
00:42:13.500But in the West, luckily, the provincial governments have stood up for their citizens and saying this is not happening.
00:42:18.880Sure. But I still think, if it wasn't for a decentralized system, I still think the government would be emphasizing their control over the entire country.
00:42:28.300I don't think they have a reason not to.
00:42:30.100Politically speaking, they can do without the votes from Alberta and Saskatchewan, as they have in many elections in the recent history, and they can still form government of some sort.
00:42:37.980I think in Quebec, there is greater popularity for gun control programs that they're advertising because, of course, again, they have enough seats, they have some political will,
00:42:46.100they have the narrative coming from Nicole Polite Technique, which was, by the way, committed by an Algerian person.
00:42:54.120I think a lot of people don't know that.
00:42:56.660But I always thought about that shooting in terms of its perspective of misogyny, you know, like, you know, men and how men are violent towards women is one more example in history that, you know,
00:43:07.520obviously there is a dark history in some spaces, but I think there's more, there's a greater story there in terms of the links of perhaps cultural differences as well.
00:43:17.440I'm not looking for that conversation right now, but I think really Quebec has a great appetite.
00:43:22.200So that's probably why right now we have a deal struggling with the province or the nation of Quebec, regardless of how you say that.